Cluttering up your tabs is something that can seriously hinder productivity, whether it’s at work, school, or just trying to browse the Internet quickly and efficiently. While all major browsers support hotkeys that help users switch between tabs, some of us do push tab size to the extreme.
Have you ever had so many tabs open that the only way to find the right one is to just guess the clicks through trial and error? It’s neither effective nor good for your stress level – trust me, I know. However, if you use Google Chrome, you’re in luck because there is an easier way to find the tab you want at any given time.
Search the open tabs in Google Chrome
Google Chrome’s Omnibox really changed the way we think about the traditional address bar. Omnibox lets you quickly query the Google search engine, perform quick calculations, search Gmail and Google Drive, and more.
One of the little-known things it does is find and switch between open tabs.
The first step in this process is to copy and paste chrome: // flags / # omnibox-tab-switch-questions into the omnibox. Press Enter and you will be immediately taken to the Omnibox Tab Switching Options in Chrome Flags and highlight it.
Since this setting is disabled by default, you need to change it from Default to Enabled by clicking the drop-down menu.
If necessary, after changing any of the Chrome flags, you will need to restart your browser. You can do this gracefully by saving your open tabs by clicking the RESTART NOW button that should appear.
Otherwise, closing and opening Chrome manually will help.
Done as soon as Google Chrome restarts! To search and switch between tabs, open a new tab and enter a term or phrase located in the title bar or URL of one of the open tabs.
If you enter correctly, you should see results that include the currently open tabs. For each of these results, there will be a “Switch to this tab” button to the right of the title and URL. Pressing this button will do exactly what it says. In the example above, you can see that the phrase “how to do” shows up on two open tabs – this is our specialty after all!
Opening a new tab is not a required step in this process, so removing this bit really makes this trick effective and productive. Every time you get stuck in a tab and wonder where the next one you are looking for is, you can simply find it through the omnibox. Switching to it will not affect the currently open tab.
If you’d like to learn more about how to use the Omnibox in Google Chrome, check out our article on five powerful features for Chrome users.
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